Democrat Bryan Lentz raised about $40,000 last month, finishing the pre-primary reporting period with $600,000 in cash on hand, according to campaign finance data. The 7th District hopeful continues to face a financial disadvantage against Republican opponent Pat Meehan, whose campaign reported having almost $900,000 in the bank at the close of the reporting period.

But Lentz also found some cash for political goodwill. After bringing a ballot challenge against environmental lawyer Gail Conner, one that prompted her to withdraw from the race, Lentz’s campaign gave Conner’s campaign $2,000 to help her wind down her political action committee (think Barack Obama helping Hillary Clinton retire her campaign debt).

Lentz also spent another $20,000 last month on the law firm that handled ballot challenges the campaign spearheaded against all three opponents in the race, bringing the cost of that legal endeavor—which ended with a clear primary field but Meehan still on the ballot—to $35,000 so far. Lentz’s campaign manager said that number does not represent the total cost of the ballot challenges, but declined to detail the remaining costs this week.

The race is currently ranked No. 2 in the pa2010.com Congressional Power Rankings.

A state judge ruled Thursday that Democrat E. Teresa Touey had only 992 valid signatures on her nominating petitions, less than the 1,000 required. Commonwealth Court Judge P. Kevin Brobson’s decision kept Touey off the May primary ballot, leaving state Representative Bryan Lentz (D-Delaware) as the only Democrat in the race. He will face former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan in November, and the two have already been jousting for months.

For Touey, the ruling ended a campaign that never really got off the ground. After announcing her candidacy at a sparsely-attended news conference last September, Touey raised little money and built even less of a political organization. In a statement Friday, she was sharply critical of Lentz, who spearheaded ballot challenges against all three of his opponents. A challenge against Democrat Gail Conner prompted her to drop out of the race, while a challenge against Meehan was unsuccessful.

In her statement, Touey said that Lentz had avoided “the rigors of a Democratic primary which would require him to articulate his beliefs and his ideas in forums, debates and opinion pages on the difficult realities facing the country and the voters would have prepared him best for the tough general election in the fall.”

“I want a system that encourages candidates and voters to get involved to support my party and candidates in whom they believe,” Touey said. “Is this an unreasonable position? My conclusion about this legal and political experience is a renewed commitment to working on ballot access issues in my home state.”

For Lentz, the clear field may help him raise money from Democratic donors who were hesitant to get involved in a primary, albeit one that was never seriously in doubt.

Lentz campaign manager Vincent Rongione said that “unfortunately, Ms. Touey did not meet the minimum number of signatures required by law.”

“It is a very low threshold and the law is very clear,” he said in a statement. “It is unfortunate but we are moving full speed ahead toward the general election, and we look forward to debating all of the issues facing our nation with the GOP machine’s candidate.”

When Conner entered the race in November, some party insiders thought her longstanding ties to area churches could make her a formidable candidate. But she never raised any significant amount of money, nor did she build much of a campaign on the ground. Her spot on the ballot was being challenged by Lentz, and she posted a message on her campaign Web site withdrawing from the race Tuesday.

“As my family and close friends know, it is not my nature to start a task and not finish it, especially with over 2,000 signatures on my petitions,” Conner wrote. “However, due to the current political climate in our nation and the need to maintain our party’s majority in Congress, I have decided to withdraw from the race.

“I am grateful for my supporters and appreciate all of your hard work over the past eight months,” she added. “I especially thank my loving senior citizen volunteers who gave me words of wisdom and the youth who encouraged me. Thank you to all who carried my petitions and worked so hard during those cold, snowy days of winter. Thank you to all of those who signed my petitions and shared their stories, volunteered in the office, and made financial contributions.”

Conner could not be immediately reached for further comment Wednesday morning. Political consultant E. Teresa Touey is the only other candidate still in the race against Lentz, who party leaders consider to be the presumptive nominee. A ballot challenge also spearheaded by Lentz is still pending against Touey.

The umbrella labor organization endorsed five candidates in Democratic primaries when its Executive Council met Tuesday. Perhaps most notable was the AFL-CIO’s backing for 6th District hopeful Doug Pike, who is locked in the party’s most competitive House nominating contest against Manan Trivedi. Pike already enjoyed deeper labor support than Trivedi, and despite Trivedi’s recent surge of local party support, the AFL-CIO endorsement effectively puts the state’s organized labor community behind the former Inquirer editorial writer.

The endorsements from the state’s most powerful labor organization were expected to be formally announced later on Tuesday, but the results were described by someone familiar with the Executive Council’s vote.

The AFL-CIO also endorsed incumbent Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper (D-3) over primary challenger Mel Marin, and it backed incumbent Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11) over Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien.

The group endorsed state Representative Bryan Lentz (D-Delaware) in the 7th Congressional District, where he is considered the overwhelming favorite against political consultant E. Teresa Touey and environmental lawyer Gail Conner.

And the AFL-CIO backed Democrat Mark Critz in the 12th Congressional District, endorsing him for both the special election and the primary election to be held the same day.

“This is the kind of behavior that voters do not want,” Touey said in an interview Monday morning.

After a few days of silence following the challenge filed by supporters of Lentz, Touey struck back on Sunday with a statement asking “What the heck is WRONG with Bryan Lentz?” She followed it with an e-mail to supporters, and was set to hold a press conference Monday morning at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge in Tinicum. She said she’s putting together a legal team for when the challenge will be heard in court early next month. It’s one of three ballot challenges spurred by Lentz, which together seek to have all three candidates besides him kept off the ballot. Democrat Gail Conner, who Lentz is also looking to keep off the ballot, could not be reached for comment late last week. A ballot challenge against Republican Pat Meehan will also be heard next month.

In the interview, Touey said she had spent up to 12 hours a day for three weeks, standing outside area supermarkets and gathering signatures.

“I’m an experienced professional who knows how to gather signatures,” said Touey, who was a political consultant in Massachusetts before moving back to the district last year to run.

“I’m disgusted and I think the Founders would be disgusted,” she said. “Due process and the voters are being disregarded by this.”

In a statement, Lentz campaign manager Vincent Rongione said the issue is simply about “complying with the law.”

“The law is very clear and the standard to be placed on the ballot is very low,” he said.

Though many candidates gathering signatures typically spend time going door-to-door in addition to prospecting the kind of high-density areas that Touey frequented, she said her time for door-to-door canvassing was limited.

“I don’t have a whole band of insiders helping me or a whole band of staffers helping me,” Touey said. “I’ve done it in front of supermarkets a lot before. It was a great experience, and I recommend it to both Bryan Lentz and Pat Meehan.”

A petition to keep Republican Jean Craige Pepper of the primary ballot for Lieutenant Governor has already been set aside. We’re still trying to figure out exactly why, but from a quick review of court documents, it looks like the complaint was simply withdrawn. That means a whopping nine Republicans will indeed vie for GOP votes for Lt. Gov. in May.

Meanwhile, loads of hearings have been scheduled.

A challenge to incumbent Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper’s (D-3) nominating petitions, filed by her primary opponent Mel Marin, will have a hearing Wednesday morning. Dahlkemper is being represented by Clifford Levine, the same high-profile election lawyer handling the ballot challenge against Republican Pat Meehan in the 7th District.

A hearing on the challenge to keep 11th District GOP hopeful Chris Paige off the ballot is set for March 30.

A hearing on the ballot challenge against 17th District Democratic hopeful Sheila Dow-Ford is scheduled for April 7.

And hearings for the ballot challenges against 7th District Democratic candidates E. Teresa Touey and Gail Conner—both of which were spurred by Democrat Bryan Lentz—are set for April 6 and April 7, respectively.

The 15-page complaint, filed by Republican supporters of Meehan’s likely Democratic opponent Bryan Lentz, details a litany of problems with the more than 3,600 signatures collected by Meehan’s campaign, as well as with the petitions on which they were gathered. If even a fraction of the allegations prove to be true, it will cast significant doubt on Meehan’s comments last week implying that the problems were limited to signatures gathered by one just one person. Lentz’s campaign also spurred ballot challenges against both of his underdog primary opponents, E. Teresa Touey and Gail Conner, in a move that could leave him unopposed in May but could also run the risk of alienating some Democratic women (a Women for Lentz fundraiser is scheduled for Thursday evening).

It was unclear Wednesday night when court hearings for any of the challenges would take place.

The complaint, which is being handled by prominent election lawyer Clifford Levine, alleges that an examination of Meehan’s nominating petitions reveals “a wide-ranging and extensive pattern of false and forged entries, entries obtained through deception of Signers, and whole pages of outright forged signatures.” The complaint is the culmination of a several-days long effort by Lentz campaign staffers, during which they pored through Meehan’s nominating petitions and contacted people whose signatures they now believe were forged. Though Lentz cannot personally be the one challenging Meehan’s ballot position—the law requires the challenge come from a registered Republican—his campaign has made no effort to hide its fingerprints on on the complaint.

“This challenge will demonstrate that the instances of forgery and fraud in Meehan’s petitions extend far beyond what Meehan and his organization were willing to admit in their confession to the district attorney last week,” Lentz campaign manager Vincent Rongione said.

More than 2,600 signatures have to be ruled void for Meehan to be knocked off the ballot. And while the complaint involves enough signatures that it alleges to be invalid, it references evidence which will only emerge in the discovery process if the case moves forward—making it impossible to fully and independently assess the allegations at this early stage.

Meehan’s campaign did not comment directly on the complaint or its substance Wednesday, except to share with reporters a letter that he sent to Lentz about the matter. In the letter, Meehan lamented that Lentz is picking “petty fights” and playing “gotcha politics.” He dismissed the scope of the complaint’s claims, and challenged Lentz to “do better.”

“In truth, this whole part of the exercise is a charade,” Meehan wrote. “Stop hiding behind your political handlers and loyalists and stand up and make your support for this petty challenge public.”

Meehan also said this his campaign had reviewed Lent’s nominating petitions and found 550 signatures that could be challenged (Lentz’s campaign collected more than 5,000).

“But I chose not to engage in the waste of court resources that your campaign has willingly embraced,” Meehan wrote. “I believe voters deserve better.”

The complaint is nothing if not wide in scope, claiming to have evidence enough to strike 2,284 signatures simply on their individual merits. The signatures in question, according to the complaint, include ones that, among other things, were illegible; incomplete; belonging to voters not registered in the district; belong to voters not registered as Republicans; or forged entirely by someone else. It further alleges that many of the petitions on which signatures were gathered were circulated by people other than those who signed affidavits confirming they had  witnessed each signature.

All together, it appears to be the most serious ballot challenge to a major candidate this cycle. And unless it completely flops in court, even a loss would seem to have significant political upside for Lentz. Despite its competitiveness, many Democratic leaders and fundraisers are bearish on the race, seeing Meehan and the powerful Republican Party in Delaware County as exceedingly tough to beat in a year trending against the Democrats. A substantive ballot challenge could dent that perception, and energize some in the party to take at least one foot off the sidelines.

It also underscores that the Lentz campaign believes it has one of its strongest arguments against Meehan in seeking to paint him as part of the county GOP machine, a local party with a sway over local politics rivaled by few others in Pennsylvania. It’s an argument that will be especially hard to make against someone like Meehan—a man who can claim credit for putting former state Senator Vince Fumo behind bars, and who oversaw a City Hall probe that ended with guilty pleas or convictions for everyone charged.

And the complaint could also serve to put the county GOP itself “on trial,” in a manner of speaking. Some of the people the complaint targets for allegations of fraudulent signature collection include party bosses Tom Judge and John McNichol.

The complaint began to emerge about a week ago, when operatives for Lentz learned that a supporter’s wife allegedly had her signature forged on a nominating petition. They began to dig deeper, and soon, Meehan alerted the press that it had asked county District Attorney Mike Green to investigate the matter (pa2010.com has yet to determine whether or not it was the Lentz campaign’s actions that directly led to Meehan learning of the problems). In his letter to Green, Meehan acknowledged that petitions circulated by one person contain signatures “that we believe are questionable.” The disclosure got Meehan’s campaign ahead of the story for a few news cycles. But Lentz staffers and volunteers worked through the weekend to review Meehan’s nominating petitions, and by the beginning of this week they were looking for a lawyer to file the complaint by the day-end deadline on Tuesday.

Levine, the lawyer handling the ballot challenge, has worked for Senator Bob Casey, and led successful the ballot challenge against a third-party candidate in the 2006 Senate race. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

•Also on pa2010.com: Meehan asks D.A. to investigate his ballot petitions
D.A. investigating Meehan’s petitions also a contributor

The Lentz campaign said a roll-vote wasn’t needed, with overwhelming support coming in the form of a standing voice vote. Environmental lawyer Gail Conner and political consultant E. Teresa Touey are both running, but neither have been able to gain much traction in their campaigns. Former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan is the presumptive Republican nominee.

“We are very proud to endorse Bryan because on the issues that matter most to the residents of Delaware County like creating jobs, protecting the environment and keeping our country safe, Bryan is clearly the best candidate,” party vice -chairman Tony Campisi said in a statement. “His experiences as a paratrooper, prosecutor and legislator have made him an independent leader who people know they can count on for results.”

Newly-filed campaign finance data shows that political consultant E. Teresa Touey raised about $6,000 for her 7th District congressional race. But she spent almost all of it, and had only $437 on hand at the end of the year. Environmental lawyer Gail Conner, meanwhile, finished the year with less than $3,000.

Lentz had about $460,000 on hand. Democratic leaders already consider him the presumptive nominee to take on former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan in the general election.

A day after he and Senator Arlen Specter both made their cases to liberal activists in Harrisburg, Sestak was back in his district talking up his anti-establishment message.

“We’re not Rendell-ites or Biden-ites,” Sestak said, referring to Specter’s support from the governor and the vice president. “We’re a party of principle … not political calculation.”

The fate of Sestak’s primary bid hinges in part on his ability to court local supporters into building a statewide organization to run against Specter’s more well-funded campaign. To that end, his is quick to remind voters and party insiders alike that a body of polling data has shown less than a third of voters thinking Specter deserves reelection.

“We didn’t win the White House through deal-making,” Sestak said during the forum at the Rose Tree Fire Company, sponsored by the Mid-County Democratic Committee. “We won it through audacity.”

Gubernatorial candidates Joe Hoeffel and Chris Doherty also addressed the crowd, marking the third time in as many days that the Democratic rivals shared a room. Hoeffel emphasized his political history in southeastern Pennsylvania, while Doherty continued to play up the revitalization of Scranton under his watch.

The party’s candidates in the 7th Congressional District—state Representative Bryan Lentz (D-Delaware), environmental lawyer Gail Conner and political consultant E. Teresa Touey—also took turns courting local Democrats.